An Act of Cosmic Sabotage

“On Mars, in the belly of a rover named Perseverance, a titanium tube holds a stone more precious than any diamond or ruby on Earth.” Not too shabby, as far as first lines go! Ross Andersen details the plight of Perseverance—along with a few other “interplanetary robotic explorers” and space telescopes, plus the people who tend them—as the Trump Administration strove to reduce funding for NASA’s science missions, an effort that prompted thousands of job cuts and buyouts. A marvelous piece of science writing, Andersen’s report grants new awe and champions “intergenerational vision,” a value that remains imperiled.

Even before the Voyagers left the solar system, they had blessed us with a fresh vision of our immediate cosmic environment. They discovered Jupiter’s rings and hundreds of erupting volcanoes on its moon Io. They revealed the cracking patterns that cover icy Europa, another moon, hinting at its ocean. They caught Saturn’s moons creating braiding patterns in its rings. Their close-ups of Uranus and Neptune were beamed to screens all around the world. Before crossing the barrier that divides the sun’s sphere of influence and the rest of the galaxy, Voyager 1 turned its camera back toward us and snapped a picture of Earth suspended in a sunbeam.

Then it went rushing away. An astrophysicist recently used a computer simulation to calculate its future trajectory, and determined that it has some chance of being ejected into intergalactic space when the Milky Way and Andromeda merge, billions of years from now. It could be the final surviving artifact of human existence. Even if the Voyagers go dark tomorrow, they will long testify to the reach of America’s scientific imagination, and the daring of its engineers. NASA’s exploration of the solar system may be what most recommends our civilization to the future.